Taak Krodha
by evolution-500
Summary: A troubled Jago returns home to his temple, only to find something disturbing waiting for him within. Oneshot


**Taak Krodha**

By evolution_500

**Rating: PG - PG-13**

**Genres: Angst/Spiritual/Tragedy**

**Feedback: Always welcome**

**Notes: I loved the first game. The second game was alright, mechanics-wise anyway, but the characters (the new ones) and parts of the story were kind of a hit and miss, although I've got to admit Gargos was the exception due to his connection to Jago, one of my favorites. I haven't played the new game yet so I don't know whether it's good or not, but I like the idea behind Jago's backstory and latest costume in terms of how it connects with the previous game. I'm kind of surprised there aren't any stories that delve into this part the character's life, it's just begging to be explored! For this story in particular, there will be slight liberties taken with Jago's appearance. Think KI1 Jago in terms of his overall appearance with a few more influences from Tibetan monks, not the weird male stripper outfit that was his KI2/XBOX classic costume with the ridiculously huge tears and exposed bellybutton. **

**I don't know if the end result is any good. If not, then I hope a better writer does the character more justice. I hope you enjoy the story! :)**

**Music: Jago Theme (KOMPLETE EDITION)**

**Disclaimer: KILLER INSTINCT is a property belonging to Rare. I do not own any of these characters.**

For any weary traveler climbing up the harsh snow-covered mountain terrain of Tibet, the sight of the temple would have been thought of as a blessing or a relief. For Jago, a man who was used to these sorts of conditions, however, it brought none of those things for him as he crossed the rope bridge.

Average in height and slim though lean in frame, he was dressed in a light blue dhonka and shemdap with red piping on the edges of his inner robe, while draped around one arm, shoulder and part of the torso was a red zhen outer robe. With his lower facial features concealed by a veil made of light blue cloth, only his bare tattooed right arm, short parted wind-swept brown hair, sandal-clad feet and hard angry eyes framed by ornate golden teeth remained exposed to the biting cold. Clutching the red wooden scabbard that held his faithful ke-tri sword in one hand, Jago angrily stared to the temple that housed the Order of the Tiger, the place that he had for many years called home.

Built on the elevated side of the mountain facing the south, it was a majestic golden and red building made from stone and wood that stood eleven stories high, a mixture of Nepalese and Tang Dynasty-styled architecture that mostly mimicked the Potala Palace from Lhasa in appearance, with a collection of tiger-headed stupas lining its courtyard. Overlooking a nearby lake and waterfall, the temple had been deliberately positioned and designed by its original architects to make accessibility difficult. With its slippery jagged slopes and high altitude, climbing would be out of the question for any potential invader, only the rope bridge could grant them entrance. It was here where Jago had been raised and brought up from birth, where he had received his Buddhist education and where he had learned the secret techniques of the Endokuken, or "fist from within".

Seeing the building before him, it took every ounce of control that the monk had over himself not to violently express his righteous outrage.

_'No,'_ he told himself in denial.

He needed to ensure the safety of his people.

Stepping forward, Jago listened as the wood creaked beneath each step and mixed with the roaring din that was brought on by the waterfall's crashing waves. Pushing the first set of doors open, he stepped into the courtyard and glanced around as they noisily closed behind him. Upon entering the temple, however, his eyes narrowed as his nostrils were assaulted by a distinctive odor.

It was not the scent of incense that greeted him.

Far from it.

"Master?" he called out. "Anil? Assam? Nuba? Jigme?!"

When he didn't receive an answer, Jago's feet flew off from the floor as he frantically began searching through the temple's hundreds of rooms.

_'Please don't let the visions be true,'_ he prayed. Please don't let the smell be from-

Jago froze upon entering a hallway. The monk was no stranger to death; at the age of eight he had witnessed his first sky burial with the rest of the Order, an event that he would never forget. It had frightened him as a child, caused him to softly cry throughout the night, for he had begun to realize that everyone and everything around him, including himself, was impermanent, destined to die. It was also what gave him the resolve to dedicate himself to spiritual practice.

And yet, for all of the monk's knowledge and experience, Yama, the monstrous Tibetan God of Death, and his consort Chamunda proved that they still have ways of getting under his skin and making him feel as powerless and unprepared as he was all those years ago. Searching the rest of the temple with increasing numbness, Jago wandered, neither dead nor alive.

Wherever he looked, be it the kitchen, the corridors or the shrine, death could be found.

All one hundred or so members of the Order. People that were outcasts and refugees that had wanted to flee from tyranny. All the men, women and children, people that he had thought of as family... they were all dead.

Lowering his chin, Jago felt his eyes and face burn furiously.

What a fool he had been...

His self-beration would have to wait, for now wasn't the time, he needed to give them a proper burial.

Closing his eyes and taking in several deep breaths, Jago waited until the heat died down within him. When he reopened his eyes, he found himself able to think more clearly. The anger was still there, but for now he was in control. Giving a final glance to one of his deceased brethren, Jago turned away and started in his search for sheets and blankets.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The sky was a dull orange when he had finished wrapping up the Abbot's remains with his own zhen robe. He did everything he could to make sure that all were sealed securely, but there were just far too many bodies; he had to resort to using some of the curtains due to the sheer number. Sitting down, Jago started to chant a prayer. When he finished, he opened his eyes, then set about to completing his next task.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Panting with each breath, Jago stepped into the temple, his body tired and aching from hours of nonstop labor. The entire evening had been spent digging up and filling graves on the other side of the rope bridge. A few vultures had been watching and flying around hungrily, but he hadn't allowed even one to get close. If these people had died under different circumstances, perhaps he would have granted the vultures access, more specifically to the men and women, but he couldn't take that risk. Tradition dictated that the murdered be buried.

_'Tradition,' _he thought disgustedly, his hands tightening into fists.

How many years had he been devoted to purification, renouncing all worldly goods in pursuit of enlightenment?

For the entirety of his life, Jago had worshiped the Tiger Spirit. At thirteen years-old, he had managed to grab the attention of the High Abbot and later had become his star pupil, achieving gelong-leveled status by the age of twenty-three, the youngest to have earned such a title within the Order, gaining the respect from his fellow monks for being one of the very few able to harness the Tiger's raw power without giving in, even when it had threatened his very sanity. Many had thought it strange that his chi was green rather than it being pure flame, but he had thought nothing of it at the time. He had been so proud that day, especially when the High Abbot marked him with the tattooes as a sign of his esteem.

Looking down at his arms and torso, Jago stared at the swirls of black ink that decorated them. To be given the tiger stripes was the mark of a warrior, one who was deemed worthy enough to learn and wield the power of the Tiger Spirit itself. To be given the light blue dhonka and shemdap was the sign that he would be moving onto the Divine Path.

_'Lies,'_ he mentally growled.

The Tiger Spirit that spoke to him, guided him and taught him everything he knew, be it through dreams or meditation, was not the all-knowing, benevolent being that he looked up to and cherished, it was merely a facade for something else – – a demon known as Gargos.

The things he had done in its name...

For countless centuries, the Order had a vow of non-interaction - any form of contact with the outside world was forbidden. People that violated this vow were forced to live in exile, never allowed to return, while death was reserved for the more severe offenders that dared to spill their secrets, along with those that were deemed too untrustworthy to leave alive. It was this rule alone that had kept the Order and its members safe from persecution. Jago had broken that vow, leaving the temple in order to participate in a tournament run by a corrupt corporate conglomerate, believing that the Tiger Spirit had wanted to end whatever evil had lurked within. He had believed that he was doing a service for good, when in fact he merely paved a way for an _even greater_ evil. Not only had he performed the forbidden Taak Krodha, or Tiger Fury, technique in front of millions, thereby allowing said-corporate conglomerate to replicate and implement it into their damned creations, more specifically the cybernetic soldier known as Fulgore, but his efforts had also resulted in Gargos' emancipation from whatever nightmarish world existed beyond the thread of reality. Jago had rectified his first mistake by eliminating the cyborg along with the lab containing his data, but the latter proved especially costly for the monk; as a show of "gratitude" for his loyalty and for the death of an old adversary, the demon gave a demonstration of its power by slaughtering his brethren from afar. Even worse, he had used whatever psychic abilities he had to force Jago into watching.

_'They have all suffered because of me,'_ he thought in shame.

Wincing as his muscles ached in protest, Jago stepped forward, eager to to get some rest. There was much to do for the upcoming week. From this day until the seventh, preparations would have to be made for performing religious ceremonies. After that, the ceremonies would then have to be repeated every seven days for forty-nine days after the victims' deaths. As he sluggishly headed for the resting quarters, something snapped beneath him. Lifting his foot away, Jago's eyes widened in horror upon seeing the object that he had carelessly just destroyed - a crudely carved wooden sculpture of an elephant with a broken trunk and tusks. Kneeling down, he shakily picked up the pieces and held them up in his hands. It used to have been a toy that he had made for a an eight year-old boy named Jampo, one of the many children that the Order had taken into their care.

_'He must have been playing down here when it happened,'_ he surmised, tracing his fingers along the edges.

Carved from a piece of driftwood, it had been given to the boy as a gift.

Jago still remembered how happy the boy had been at the time...

In Tibetan tradition, grieving, open or otherwise, was not condoned for fear that the griever's sadness would cause increased sufferings to the departed, even leading to more unfortunate rebirths.

Part of Jago wanted to bury the broken pieces with Jampo's body, mainly for sentimental reasons, but the horrible truth of the matter was that it would be impossible for him to do so. Religion aside, all of the bodies had been burnt beyond recognition. Finding out which had belonged to the Abbot alone had been an incredibly difficult task to accomplish. Frustrated, the monk chucked them to the floor and started to turn away when a glint of yellow caught his eye.

Looking up, Jago found himself staring into the faces of various golden tiger murals on the red wooden columns.

From their various positions, they sneered and laughed derisively at him, the fool, the temple's idiot.

Fire rose up from the veins in his arms and spread upward to his chest and face.

Letting out a furious roar of anguish, Jago lashed out, striking one with a punch and the other with a kick.

Stone crumbled and flaked while wood splintered all about him as his ire was fully realized.

"ENNNNNDDDDDOKKUUUKKEEENNNNN!" he shouted as a green fireball was unleashed from one hand, turning a golden statue into a heap of smoking scrap.

Twisting around on one foot, Jago lunged viciously out to another at high speed with a cry and a split kick, the latter shattering its face.

Recovering, he then reared one leg up in the style of a crane and launched himself forward, repeatedly bashing through columns and murals alike. Very little was able to withstand his Windkicks, even in its different forms.

Whipping out his ke-tri, he channeled his chi and anger into the blade. Green flames lit the blackened corridors as he leapt up and spun around in the air, slicing through tapestries and walls alike with the "laser sword" as termed by Ultratech's pushy marketing agents. Slipping the weapon back into its scabbard, Jago stopped, taking in everything that was left.

There was still more to destroy.

_'Good, I've only just begun,'_ he snarled wrathfully as he bent his knees in preparation.

"ENNNNNDOOOKUUKEEEEEENNNN!" he roared as he released the Tiger's Fury. Leaping high up with his fist in the air above his head, he uppercutted through the ceiling beams, exploding out from the roof like an angry Roman candle.

Spinning around in the cold, starless and pitiless night sky, his contours illuminated by the moon, the monk glanced back to the temple's shuddering form below. Watching as it all came crashing down, he let himself descend into the smokey haze before slamming down onto the floor itself, the impact causing a wave of dust and debris to fly outward from his position. Straightening his posture, his fists clenched, Jago panted heavily, waiting as the air cleared.

As moonlight washed over the ruins and peaked through the rib-like remains of its walls, Jago felt himself suddenly seize up and clutch at his chest, his heart feeling as if it were being squeezed from the inside.

Falling to his knees, Jago looked around. He didn't know what was happening.

As everything blackened around him, Jago heard a familiar laugh echo in his ears.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Jago came to, he squinted as the bright rays of the sun hit his eyes. Pushing himself off from the stone floor to a seated position, his face sore and his hair plastered to one side, he stared morosely to the ground, shivering at what had occurred. Even though he managed to vanquish Gargos with the aid of another, the demon had managed to leave something behind without his knowing.

_'No doubt a fail-safe to ensure its survival,' _he reflected.

Through his grief and anger, he had allowed the demon to gain control.

Never again.

_'You may have deceived me. You may have used me. You may have caused great anguish to my body and spirit and even greater harm to my people, along with those that came before them, but know this - I will be damned before I'd let you have my soul, demon.' _Jago promised.

He needed to exorcise himself of this evil, but how?

Sitting cross legged, Jago lowered his chin in reflection, his mind a jumble of thoughts with many different roads and intersecting lines. In his meditations as of late, Jago felt that he had lost something of vital importance, but he hadn't been able to put his finger on what it had been. It wasn't until he found himself catching sight of one of the lotus decorations that he had shattered that he found himself thinking back to a particular figure - the secret agent known as Black Orchid, whom Gargos had revealed to be his older sister. He recalled how she had been able to tap into her chi and assume the Tiger's form, which had caused no shortage of astonishment and confusion for him at the time. For one to utilize such power, it usually took years to master its abilities, let alone be one with the Spirit, and yet she had done it effortlessly. She had claimed ignorance on her part, saying that she had always been able to summon the "fire cat" at will, even as a child. When further pressed in regards to her having visions or hearing voices, the slightest suggestions of contact, she had given him a look as if he were mentally unstable.

Mulling that memory over, Jago found himself becoming increasingly curious about the enigmatic woman. If she had had access to Gargos' power, how was it that she had been able to use it without becoming corrupted?

It was then that Jago realized his error - he had been working under the assumption that Gargos had something to do with her abilities, but that wasn't true. At least, he didn't believe that to be the case...

_'Alright, I need to review the facts,'_ he thought.

It was obvious now that the green hue of his chi was the result of the demon's influence, of that there was no doubt. Otherwise, how would he be able to account for the other, though few, chi users, his sister Orchid included? During the formers' demonstrations, they had never changed the color of their chi like he had. Plus, none of his fellow monks, not even the Abbot, claimed to have had heard the Tiger Spirit. Only Jago himself had verbal communication with the being, usually when he had either been alone or in the presence of the golden Tiger Statue at the shrine. It would whisper to him, urge him to perform a technique in a manner contrary to what the Abbot had taught.

Jago shifted thoughtfully in his perch.

For as long as he could remember, he and the others had always thought of the Tiger Spirit as being a physical though divine creature. It had never occurred to him that it was possible that it never had a voice to begin with.

Thinking back to his sister's transformation, Jago found himself asking more questions.

What exactly was the Tiger Spirit? Was it some mystical being like he and others had believed, or was it something far more intangible, something internal that manifested itself in certain ways?

The secret to defeating Gargos and finding these answers lay in the Abbott's teachings and in the Order's scrolls, of that Jago was certain.

...Was he?

Letting a frown form beneath the veil, Jago gave a slight grunt of displeasure. The monk was still unsure about a lot of things.

How much of what he had learned been the result of misinformation?

While he was certainly mindful that the Abbot and possibly others monks before him may have played a role by censoring certain materials, Jago would not push it into the realm of impossibility that Gargos may have had a hand, perhaps even without the Order's knowing.

_'That is, assuming it had been done without their knowing,'_ Jago thought suspiciously. _'Perhaps I should look at outside sources - other religions, maybe the sciences as well - for further references and insights.'_

On one hand, by exploring these disparate theological terrains, it could allow for greater understanding, thereby leading to enlightenment. On the other hand, though, there was still the issue of reliability. Before its imprisonment, the demon had taken on a multitude of forms and aliases throughout the centuries, or so it had claimed. It would have had ample time and countless opportunities to leave its mark on the various religions of the world.

Taking this into account, Jago began to realize that what he needed to do was more than merely broadening his horizons. He needed to relearn and review everything that he had been taught, start afresh, ask more questions. He could not be the same man that he once was.

Rising from the stone floor, Jago removed the scabbard containing the ke-tri from his shoulder, along with his uniform and veil. For this journey of the soul, he should not wear or carry tainted objects with him, nor should he wear light blue for he had not ascended; he was merely deluded into thinking that he had.

A new uniform was required.

Now naked, Jago scanned his surroundings for something appropriate. Upon seeing the dark blue drapery of the curtains, he stepped toward them and ran a single hand down in admiration. Dark blue, the color of healing. The color of the very curtains that Jago had used to bury Gargos' victims with...

_'Yes. Yes, this will do very nicely,'_ he thought, giving a nod in approval.

He needed Buddha's strength more than ever if he wished to overcome this affliction, and what better way to pay homage to the Buddha of Medicine than to wear his color?

Grabbing on with both hands, Jago strained himself as he tugged on the fabric, satisfied by the audible tearing that was being made as it was ripped from its frame. Letting it fall to the floor, he then gathered some rope from the overhanging chandeliers, along with the various broken pieces of tile and statues that were scattered around.

_'Okay, I have everything I need for clothing, but I still need a weapon,'_ the monk reflected.

Glancing around, he paused at the golden statue of Jampalyang, the Boddhisattva of Wisdom. Held up in the air in his left hand, independent of the statue itself, was a Tibetan kora sword. Seventy-four centimeters long in total, a thick, heavy downward curving blade approximated over seventy to eighty percent of that length, its tip consisting of two horn-like protrusions with a cutting edge in between. A rare ceremonial weapon with an obscure and poorly understood history, Jago all-too easily recognized how appropriate it was for him.

_'Lama Manjushri has provided me with tools to aid me in my quest, to help cut through the swathe of deceit and ignorance brought on by the demon!' _he marvelled. _'I will offer many prayers to you. Thank you for being here in my time of need.'_

As he began dressing himself with the various objects around him, Jago turned his thoughts over to his deceased friends.

_'__Jigme, Anil, Jampo...Master, __if you can hear me, I'm sorry for what I have done, but I will not live with regret. Grief will not lay you to rest, and it would be selfish of me to continue living like that. I have lost my way, but I intend on finding answers. Once I have finished with the funerary rituals, I promise I will learn everything there is to know about the Tiger Spirit, no matter how long.'_

It didn't matter if it took ten, let alone twenty years for him to reach the end. With his soul on the line, he was never going to rest. He was going to keep fighting until he found a way of ridding the evil within once and for all...or die trying.


End file.
